Subtext
by ashestoashesanddusttodust
Summary: Tim doesn't encourage the public, they do it themselves.


**Subtext  
**

**A Word**: Tumblr said, "Imagine Jason finding JayTim works online." And my mind said, why not? I'm sure RPS is a thing in the DC world too. Rambles and didn't want to end.

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Tim liked working at WE. He liked patrolling at night as Red Robin. He liked crashing in between at the manor or whatever safe house was being inhabited by the majority of the family. Sure, it was stressful and dangerous and a number of other things that meant he really shouldn't be called in to judge another person's sanity level, but it was what he did. Tim wouldn't change it for anything.

He could, however, give a miss on being Timothy Drake-Wayne. The public face of the Wayne family's newest addition. Responsible like Bruce Wayne wasn't, business savvy like Dick Grayson wasn't, and old enough to be put to work like Damian Wayne wasn't. The public took a liking to Tim. PR had informed him quite bluntly that as long as he smiled wide and pretty, and didn't get snagged in any scandal bigger than what Bruce normally managed they wouldn't try to change his image for the company. So Tim played the part he was given when in the public eye. Smiling for the cameras and playing nice for the stock holders.

Dodging flying bullets in the _lobby_ of WE while too many innocent -if a little blood sucking- employees and reporters panicked around him. Most of the crowd was fleeing through the open doors and out into the streets. Since the bullets were tracking Tim alarmingly well he went the opposite way. Taking the fire with him and making out three masked assailants on his heels as he slid into the thankfully abandoned stairwell.

Tim didn't recognize them and the gear they carried was unremarkable enough that he couldn't peg them to any organization. He's two flights down when the door to the lobby slams open and a man shouts down at him. Something generic that's followed up with a wild bullet that does more damage to Tim's ears than anything else. Tim leapt down the stairs. Aiming for the underground garage, his phone out as he sends Babs the request to start scrambling the video feeds. Maybe even cut the power to it so he doesn't have to explain why the armed men would think Timothy Drake-Wayne even knew how to punch let alone disarm and zip tie three armed men.

The door jolted under his hands, the men having fallen another two flights behind him, and Tim ran into the garage full tilt. Right into a small huddle of interns smoking prohibited cigarettes with some reporters. Tim slid to a stop and _gaped_ at them. Indignation and a sense of weariness taking him over because _none_ of them should even be on this level, and of course there'd be too many of them for him to easily shepherd out of the way.

"Stop right there!" The shout rang over the second slam of the door and Tim's entire back rippled with tension as he _felt_ the gun pointing at it. The interns shriek and scatter. The ones with sense diving for what cover they can get. The reporters-

Tim stared incredulously into the camera lens of a news station that was _never_ getting access to WE press conferences again if Tim had anything to say about it. He's got about three seconds to figure out what he's going to do, and no matter what choice he makes it's all going to end up on camera. On the TV by the end of the day and on the internet in under and hour.

Yay.

There's an ominous click behind him, and Tim turns to give a _look_ at the assassins because they've been shooting enough bullet that their guns are already on single action. Clicking back the hammer is just overkill in the show department. He turns just in time to dodge the flying arc of one of the men as he's kicked from behind and shot in mid air. Twice. Through the knee caps.

"The fuck are you standing there for!" Red Hood fired off more shots at the two men still in the stairwell one handed. He yanked Tim down behind a bright red Ferrari that had to be a new toy for Bruce because Tim's never seen it before. He wondered if he'll mind the bullet holes and divots in it terribly much. "You know the meaning of the word cover?"

"I-" Tim looked around wildly. The reporters had taken cover and Tim reminds himself that's a good thing even as _two_ of them point cameras his way. They're far enough away that Tim feels safe in talking. He covered his ears in a way that did nothing to block out any sound as Jason returned another volley of fire. Hunching down and doing his best to look terrified for the cameras. "I hate reporters."

Jason snorted and ducked back down. Turning to crawl over Tim and fumble with the driver door of the car. "No shit. Why didn't you take them out in the stairwell?"

"Because I thought," Tim made a show of shaking his head as Jason reached inside to rip open a panel, twisting wires together until the engine purred to life. The key was still in the ignition but Jason ignored it. "I thought this level would be empty. _Like it's supposed to be_, and I could take care of them better in the dark. Less chance of them seeing my face as I beat them here."

One of the men shouted and Jason slid into the car, shooting out the passenger window to send them both diving with another volley of bullets. He then reached down and grabbed Tim by his suit jacket. Hauling him bodily up and over his lap to sprawl awkwardly in the passenger seat. Tim scowled as he heard the rip of the cloth of his favorite suit. The door slammed shut and tires squealed as Jason immediately tested the capabilities of the engine.

"Not bad," Jason grudgingly admits when they're a safe enough distance away for Tim to slide up from the floor. "Still wouldn't pay the price tag though."

"What were you doing back there anyway?" Tim asks wearily as Jason weaved through traffic and roads. Hitting an abandoned enough looking section and pulling over.

"You mean besides saving your ass?" Jason teased. The smirk audible even through the mask as he threw the car in park and got out. Turning to lean back into the car and fix Tim with a stare he could feel through the white lenses. "O caught something fishy and was moving people before the first shots were fired. I was closest when she figured your little camera problem out."

Tim slid over into the drivers seat. Cataloging the bruises and scrapes he'd picked up playing scared little heir. "Great. At least I'll have the rest of the day off to come up with a press release for why the Red Hood seems to have joined the payroll."

"You're welcome," Jason stepped back and slammed the door. Flipping a cheerful middle finger to Tim before melting back into an alleyway. Tim sighed and wondered if he could get away with sneaking back to the manor and just not telling anyone for a day or two.

No, that'd wind up with him at the wrong end of another press conference. Tim shuddered and put the car in gear.

A week later Tim watched in satisfaction as a promising company slid into absolute financial ruin. Their stocks bottoming out and investors flipping out and ordering assets to be liquified. Pity. It'd had such a promising start until their business managers started in on the Godfather marathons. Honestly, who even thought that _killing_ a single person in a company as large as WE would make it crumble? Tim's pretty sure that the Wayne name will be dust before the company calls it quits.

He's still reaping the benefits of the botched assassination attempt. Bruce has publicly forbidden him from going out, and Lucius was publicly telling people to ease back on the requests and proposals. Out of consideration for his 'traumatic' event. The reporters were still baying outside the manor gates, but that was an every other day kind of situation for them.

Tim took advantage of the lull in his routine to finalize some reports. Check in on a few cases he still has open. Compile and send a small archive of recent pictures to remind Cas of them all. Go into Damian's room and move everything not nailed down a millimeter to the left or right. Little things that he'd put off doing for almost too long.

He was contemplating combing out Titus' coat on Dick's bed when Jason blew into the mansion. His voice echoing in a way that complimented the way Dick was laughing. Titus perked up and trotted away to investigate. Tim following behind as the shouting moved into the kitchen area.

"Why would you even look that shit up!?" Jason wasn't shouting so much as whining when Tim stepped into the kitchen. Jason stood tense and angry behind a still chuckling Dick who was keeping an even distance between them. "Why would you _show_ me? You know I-"

"Tim!" Dick _grinned_, and jumped the island. Bypassing Jason's half-hearted swing to drape himself over Tim's shoulder. "I was just showing Jay-"

"Porn," Jason sneered with an icy glare that _dared_ Dick to say something else. His arms crossed over his chest as Jason looked just slightly to the left of Tim's face. "Dickhead here thought it'd be funny scar me for life."

"Right," Tim drawled out as Dick nearly choked on laughter. He caught the tail end of a mouthed threat from Jason when he shrugged Dick off. "I really don't want to know."

Another indistinct shout echoed through the manor. High pitched and a lot angrier than Jason was earlier. And coming closer. Tim smiled slightly at the two men and headed towards one of the side doors. "By the way, I'm heading out to San Fransisco for a few days. Tell Damian the next time he so much as touches one of my computers without permission I'll do a lot worse."

Tim made it out of the manor and past the bored looking reporters with smug ease.

"I showed Jason what Tumblr was," Dick said out of the blue. His head pillowed on Tim's desk as he messed with one of the metal puzzle cubes he kept there just for Dick.

"Ok," Tim calculated to numbers in the columns again and still couldn't find where the extra money was going. The balances all added up, but the figures that made them weren't quite right. Dick's words penetrated slowly. "Wait, you did what?"

Dick grinned as he rotated a disc and part of the cube folded away. Tim remembered the porn shouting match from last month in a new light.

"Dick, you can't just do that to people!" Tim leaned back from his screen and tried to give Dick his best stern look. The one he'd learned from Alfred, not Bruce. "It's horrifying if they're not prepared just right, and even when they're braced for it it's- Well, kinda creepy."

"You like creepy, and it's funny," Dick declared, and Tim didn't know if he was talking about finding strangers writing porn about him online or showing someone else that strangers had also written porn about _them_ too. Probably both. "Besides, Jay's adjusted. He always does his best when you throw him into the deep end of things."

"By throwing him into Gotham's real person fandom?" Another aspect of a public persona that Tim, well, he didn't quite know what to do with it. Mostly, he ignored it, and very deliberately didn't Google his own name carelessly anymore. Not much of a problem for Jason. He was still legally dead, and the Red Hood was usually only found in the worst places of Gotham which was enough of a reporter repellent that the public didn't have much knowledge of him. "How do they even know enough about Red Hood to write?"

"They don't," Dick's grin was too broad and angelic, "but they do have some nice footage of him grabbing you and hauling you over his lap into a car."

Tim grimaced. Subtext, he'd learned from an all too sharing Dick, made the rabid core of fandom that had built up around the Timothy Drake-Wayne persona go round. The footage would have been online in an hour, and the art and stories would have been out no more than two hours later. Maybe less. And Dick had thrown Jason head first into all of that. "You're such a dick, Dick."

"Oh yeah? Then tell me why Jason's got a Tumblr of his own now," Dick pressed something and the cube gave in, folding out to drop a wrapped candy into his palm. "Talking about safe sex and giving very detailed lectures on how sex really works. He's pretty popular on Gotham centric blogs."

Tim stared at the file open on his computer. Eyes running over the numbers and not taking a single thing in. He nudged the mouse up and hit save before shutting his computer down. He was done. Done for the day, maybe another week. Maybe even _two_. Just to recover from the heart-attack that was Jason giving the fandom advice.

He glared at Dick's poorly hidden smugness as Tim left the office a whole hour early. "_Such_ a dick."

"Aw, don't be like that, Tim," Dick draped and arm across his shoulders and smiled brightly at every person they passed on the way to the elevators. "You're just upset because you don't get to complain how much harder it was to be a fan in your days."

"I walked through Crime Alley. Uphill, both ways, in winter," Tim said dryly as the doors closed behind them. "Dealing with bad lighting, potential pedophiles, and that pesky first Robin who never stayed still long enough for me to bring him into focus."

"Exactly!" Dick squeezed his shoulder, pressing for the lobby and not the garage. "You had to _work_ for your material. Now days everything's on the internet. All laid out on a platter. There's no work to the stalking anymore. No soul!"

"I hate you," Tim grimaced into the reflection of the doors.

"No you don't," Dick countered. Just before the doors opened on a group of barely restrained reporters. Who all turned on the elevator lightning quick, nearly trampling the security guards as they all shouted questions. Most of which all had to do with the Red Hood's connection to Batman Incorporated.

"I really, really do," Tim muttered out of the side of his mouth as he plastered an easy smile on his face and faced down the horde. Fully aware that his "No comment," was only going to fuel their questions _and_ fandom speculation.

Tim _really_ hated having a public persona at times. A lot of times. Most of the time.

"What kind of personal relationship do you have with the Hood, Mr. Drake?" A skinny, bright eyes woman asked with more interest than the question warranted.

_All of the time._

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End file.
